Playing Music In A Nightclub Just Got Ridiculously More Expensive In Australia
from the and-that's-just-the-start dept
We've pointed out in the past how ridiculous it is to have "collections societies" for music, which basically act as big bureaucracies for taxing any kind of music usage. These societies -- both the for-profit and non-profit ones -- have pretty much one goal and one goal only: to increase how much money they get. So when you hear about new schemes, like Choruss, to set up a new such collection society, you know it's just a blatant money grab, rather than allowing for real business models to be developed. We've seen this all over the world, with SoundExchange in the US sitting on millions of dollars it collected, PRS in the UK trying to charge a stable for horses listening to the radio or calling up small businesses and threatening them if they hear music in the background.The latest -- sent in by a bunch of you -- is that the various collections societies in Australia are looking for massive increases in what they can collect. Apparently, the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia is gleeful after the Australian Copyright Tribunal allowed somewhat insane increases to yearly fees. The new fees will almost certainly put some nightclubs out of business while making sure some restaurants no longer play any music at all:
Buoyed by the nightclub ruling, the PPCA is now targeting eateries. It wants to increase licensing fees in a 120-seat restaurant to $19,344 a year -- up from $125. Small cafes would be slugged with a 4729 per cent yearly increase from $124 to $5860.Just look at those numbers for a second. And then try not to laugh as the PPCA defends the numbers by claiming "we are looking to establish a fair return."
Meanwhile, that may not be all. Thanks to this ruling, the Australasian Performing Right Association, which collects a separate fee for composers and artists, is asking for its own massive increase in fees.
All this really does is highlight another ridiculous aspect to collections societies: their rates aren't set by the market or any effort to become more efficient/offer a better product. Instead, the rates are set by various copyright boards, courts or tribunals who get pushed heavily by industry interests for such increases. Even so, while we've seen crazy numbers from around the world, I've never seen percentage increases like those being discussed in Australia. It's as if the collections societies there don't want anyone ever playing music again.
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Filed Under: australia, collection societies, music, nightclubs
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They do
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Re: Numbers
$19344/(365x24x60x60)=$0.006129 per second
or
$0.36774 per minute
or if the music was fit on an 80 min CD and the disk is free it would cost
$29.4192 per 80min CD
See is could be worse they could have forced everyone to pay for a right to listen and charged a fee to the diner.
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Re: Re: Numbers
*no doubt some sub governmental beuracrat will have the uneviable job of creating a suitable classification for the definition of hearing, which will no doubt be passed on to a further sub panel for validation.
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Re: Re: Numbers
Where do you eat - Dennys ?
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What a great opportunity for local artists
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Re: What a great opportunity for local artists
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Re: Re: What a great opportunity for local artists
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Societies can only collect for members works
I hope they continue to raise their fees. It creates much more business for the independent artists and record companies who retain the rights to their own portfolios.
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Re: Societies can only collect for members works
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Re: What a great opportunity for local artists
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Re: Re: What a great opportunity for local artists
Indie music costs $10.00 to play
Then more people will be listening to Indie music and more music and unquie music will have a large audience and therefore more exposure. This will allow said "wave" to come and hence opportunity. (note: this is bad if you are already signed on a label...
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Congrats, all you have succeeded in doing is to move the cost.
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Or maybe it will be a comeback for live music, I dont see them trying to tax the bands if they play their own music, maybe this will bring about the return of the big bands so you can get different styles of music instead of just one type of music being played.
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Re:
The way APRA's licensing works means a venue would have to not play any music that is being represented by APRA. Ever. At all. That's actually quite a hard ask. Essentially means no cover bands and nothing that lots of people already know and love. Not what people want for the most part (unfortunately.)
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As a supplement/replacement to canned music
It could be that the minor problem of developing a sufficiently powerful A.I. to drive the thing is closer than a proliferation of equitable royalty frameworks. ;-)
The amusement of a Turing Test for DJs would be, I suppose, offset by genre-infraction wars.
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Sigh
Do you even smell the crap you are shoveling? These increases make it so even fewer of the paying customers that the labels are looking for will hear the music they are trying to sell.
Couple that with the Music Industry's attempts to get radio stations to pay more money to the 'artists' and even fewer people will hear the music.
Congrats actually go to the Industry for plugging more ears with their greed - torrents have nothing to do with it.
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it all stinks
This raise was fought for with the aid of some aging (and wealthy) rock-stars who were claiming the same old 'poor old musician' theme often mentioned on Techdirt.
Apart from the fact that most of the music that is played comes from small indepedent EU & US and local labels so they have NO right to claim these funds, it's on their website that they keep 90% of fees that belong to overseas artists - pretty much all of it. As per their counterparts elsewhere in the world, they just pressure venues to pay no matter what and the burden of proof is back on the venue if they claim that they don't play music that is not licensed by them. Their basic argument 'We have so many labels it's not possible for us to be able to check them all so you must be playing some of our music'
The most troubling part of the ruling is that venues now have to pay a license fee for every night they are open of about $1 per approved license capacity regardless of actual. So basically a venue that has a capacity of 1000 people must now pay $1000 per night they want to open, even if there are only 5 people in the actual club.
The non-commercial nature of many dance music styles means that most if not all is relased on the independent labels. The 4 big labels have done little or nothiing to support the house and techno scenes over the years .The digital nature of both the production and now almost exlcusively digital distribution of electronic music now allows many artists to create their own 'record' labels.
This is most insensible and disgraceful money grab by an 'not for profit'institution (whose 4 major shareholders are the big 4 music labels) which really is just an attempt to extort money from dance music venues.
Production is a natural step for many DJ's. People who play the music constantly often have many good ideas. No DJ's = less producers.
How is that going to help anybody?
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Re: it all stinks
Yeah, most of what comes from DJs is let's take this sample here and get a girl to sing "oh yeah sexy baby do me baby " over it and we will call it original.
"So basically a venue that has a capacity of 1000 people must now pay $1000 per night they want to open, even if there are only 5 people in the actual club."
If you have a 1000 limit venue with 5 people in it a night, you have bigger problems than a licensee fee.
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Re: Re: it all stinks
Think about this then. the above mentioned venue can hire a DJ/producer who play nothing but their own music all night. They have to pay the artist, all their staff and then another $1000 to PPCA. Bar staff get paid on average between $17-20 AUD per hour.
There goes 3 staff.
How is that fair?
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Re: Re: it all stinks
Oh yeah. You obviously don't listen to a lot of dance music do you.
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Re: Re: Re: it all stinks
generic beat, generic drums, generic samples, "oh baby", trance-style keyboards, call me in the morning.
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Seemes to work pretty well for all those hip-hop & R&B producers who make a bucket.
Not really all that different to 1 bass, 1 electric guitar, 1 drums, 1 singer, a few basic chords then verse chours verse chorus verse chorus chorus....
If you want to hear how wrong you are just go to beatport.com. All this is legit and legal. Sure theres some boring stuff in here but to claim that it's all the same, just a few mixed samples and not creative?
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Wait for it...
Regardless of how they get around it, I'm sure there will be opportunities for enterprising folks to help business owners avoid having to fork out this ridiculous price increase.
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ASTRA is a government run entity. My guess is that as the technology has changed their capabilities have not and distributing the royalties has become increasingly difficult and costly for them. They are the government what do you expect.
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But a restaurant ?
When you think about where you would like to go for dinner, how much does music affect your decision ? Probably not much, because you want food not music.
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Re: Re:
then why am I there, I wanted something to eat
ambiance ? ... no thanks
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ppca is a joke
Musicians who are trying to put their names out there will be able to make deals with restaurants, radios and night clubs to play their music and so they will become popular or at least make some money.
Also we won't have to listen to the crap top 40 "produced by morons who can't actually play music" any more.
Let them charge money for their crap music, maybe then we will actually hear good music played in night clubs and restaurants...
Oh the thing about DJ's -> DJ's are a joke "most of them anyway", any moron with a computer can create samples or should I say cut and paste rhythms and sounds together.
We should talk about real musicians who practice and take years to learn how to play music properly and not a few dudes who mix music together cause thats a joke.
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Re: ppca is a joke
The problem with this idea is the Mandatory licensing issues. Basically, these collections agencies (thugs) have bought and paid for enough laws to give them the "rights" to compel membership.
"This is your music? You have to pay us anyhow, And pay another membership fee. We will decide how much you should receive back and send you a check.. if we can find you. And if (when) we give up trying to find you, we will keep all of the money, forever"
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Re: Re: ppca is a joke
Clubs and pubs can easily hire bands and recordings to which the ppca has no rights. Simple, then there are no fees to the ppca.
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Re: Re: Re: ppca is a joke - but APRA
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that's pretty funny
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Seems like a Baloon Trial...
It seems easier to obtain CC and Public Domain Licensing. Promotional Licensing is tougher to maintain and track-- For example, a pub owner needs to qualify an entire playlist and ensure that Promotional license actually applies on a day-by-day basis.
This is really, really stupid and only adds overhead to an already cutthroat business, and will only anger patrons when they find out their own Government sold their pub out.
Don't mess with angry pub patrons. When they find out who is responsible, you best pack your bags as you're not getting re-elected.
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Politicians like to stir the angry pub crowd? Bees nest if you ask me.
It seems easier to obtain CC and Public Domain Licensing. Promotional Licensing is tougher to maintain and track-- For example, a pub owner needs to qualify an entire playlist and ensure that Promotional license actually applies on a day-by-day basis.
This is really, really stupid and only adds overhead to an already cutthroat business, and will only anger patrons when they find out their own Government sold their pub out.
Don't mess with angry pub patrons. When they find out who is responsible, you best pack your bags as you're not getting re-elected.
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Fitness industry is also getting slugged by collecting societies
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Fees
If it does last, then the folks that will pay for this will be the fans.
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Music companies are losing!
Or they can get one of their employees to bring a radio to work with them and play it. They can't prosecute them for doing that. Can you imagine music companies even attempting to confiscate personal property - they would be arrested on the spot.
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Watunes, The New Music Industry!
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That is more than it costs to insure the businesses
But $6,000 to turn the music on?
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Pirates...arghhh!
Ask Jay Z, is cutting back on his bling?
DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE
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These goons have got to be fucking kidding. A ridiculous upshot of an overly litigious society.
I would tell these guys where to stick it if I were approached.
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Your questions answered about Vegas
Thanks.
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play radio
NO cafe or restaurant will pay these $$, they will lose the whole industry of previously loyal, paying customers.
For nightclubs etc I don't know, though. Music is essential to their business model, however, they can't afford those fees either. Maybe that is the chance for live music again!
I hope so.
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Hip Hop maybe?
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Hip Hop :)
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http://www.theage.com.au/national/ill-have-a-little-elvis-with-that-thanks-20090613-c6sy.h tml
is very short on attribution as to where they got these fees lists from. They aren't showing if these items are extreme cases (rare) or generalized, they don't link to the PPCA website, they don't show a press release or fee schedule link or anything else like that. It almost reads like opinion, with little or no attribution on the cost numbers.
Is it ALL 120 seat restaurants, or only a specific one that happens to charge near $200 a plate for dinner, example? There is no way to tell from the article at all.
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